Clerk: $18M due to foreclosed homeowners

August 25, 2009 6:01:49 AM PDT

August 25, 2009 --

Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown says her office has found more than $18 million in mortgage surplus money that belongs to people who lost their homes to foreclosure in the last two decades. The surpluses occur when the bank sells foreclosed homes for more than the homeowners owe.

The clerk's database found about 1,900 people are due surplus money.

The surpluses mostly involve foreclosures from the 1990s and not the recent subprime mortgage collapse.